Story of my Life
by Dawn Bently
Summary: Ginny recalls the best, the worst, and the outcome of her life...


I used to know a girl who believed in fairytales. She had met Harry Potter when she was only ten years old, and had even managed to convince herself that she loved him. But she was just a girl who saw a boy in shining armor that didn't quite fit. Back then, it had been easy to believe in fairytales. In fact, it was all too easy to believe that one day Harry would defeat all forms of evil and come to take her as his bride. She might have actually believed that throughout the majority of her childhood, but once she fell in love, actually fell completely in love, she knew the difference between wanting somebody because everyone else wanted them, and wanting somebody because of the passion inside them.

That might've been the day that the girl I know became I woman I am now. And all it took was a single kiss. He'd kissed me in a way Harry never had. Or maybe the actual act of kissing was the same, but it felt completely different. His lips were ice cold, and his hands were no better, but we'd been locked in a cell for what I was told was nearly three weeks. It felt like years, though, that I sat across a cold stone cell staring at that man.

I'd tried to convince myself that it was an act of desperation. After all, we'd both been losing our sanity. I'd think, maybe a kiss was one last act to attempt to keep a grip on the reality that was quickly slipping from our grasp. That made perfect sense, too, but what makes sense in one's mind rarely makes sense in one's heart.

Harry had taken me back into his arms after we were rescued, but his look had changed, and his embrace felt different. I think we both knew we were in a relationship everyone else wanted, as opposed to what we wanted. I think that was why Harry wasn't nearly as mad as Ron said Harry should've been when we'd been caught kissing once more. It was only the second kiss, and it'd taken me months to fall back into his embrace, one that might not have fit as well as Harry's did, but one that felt nearly a hundred times better.

In fact, I think Harry was the only one who understood. It was a funny time them, when everybody knew, but we weren't together yet, because until then everyone had been so accepting of Draco Malfoy as our newest ally, and even a friend to at least Hermione. The moment they'd found him holding me, pressing me against the stone wall, his lips attached to mine so passionately, however, he was treated like a sly Slytherin whom they'd chosen out of their good will to house and feed. That certainly was not the case, and the day I'd stood up to them, and pointed out what they'd done, was the day Draco had kissed me for hours in his bed.

Despite what Harry, Ron, and Hermione thought the next morning, all we did was kiss. He'd hardly even touched my bare skin. In fact, for the rest of the night, he'd stared at me as he laid side by side in his bed, and I realized he had the same look in his eye as he did in that cold cell months in our past, but I also realized he'd had a look of absolute longing lingering in his eyes that suddenly become much deeper than I remembered them. He must've seen the look of realization on my face when it occurred to me that that first kiss was by no means an act of desperation, because he'd stared at me the entire time with that look; that look of absolute longing, and complete need.

My heart would start to falter when I saw glimpses of him, from then on out. Just peering out the window to watch him with Remus and Harry, I would feel the longing in my heart pulling me towards him, and when I really thought about it, I couldn't recall a single time I'd felt that when I had been with Harry. I didn't even feel that way when I watched cursed bludgers fly towards his skull, but of course I nearly died when Draco had slipped off his broomstick in the rain and I couldn't spot him for a full two minutes before he got to his feet once more.

One night, Draco and I had snuck out of the house to finally have a single moment to ourselves. When I stared into his eyes, I always felt there some deeper part to him locked away within the walls of his heart, and that night he'd given me the key to the lock. We had laid out on the grass and stared up at the sky, but Draco held me so close to him, I could hear his heart beat faster every time I shifted to get even closer to him. He had kissed me so tenderly that night I honestly forgotten the entire world around us. I had no thoughts of the war, or of his father had been plotting Draco's death, last we heard. I had even found myself believing in silly fairytales once more. This time, however, my knight in shining armor was anything but.

He was in fact the cast off that had not been accepted in the beginning, and even denied after being accepted. I could feel so much passion in that one kiss, that I couldn't care about anything else. Draco rolled over my body and let his weight, though he had hardly any weight, fall down onto my body, a feeling I thoroughly loved. He heard him groan in the back of his throat as I shifted my hips and accidently rubbed against his. I had never been with a man then, and he knew it well enough, even though the talk of the Order was that I'd bedded Harry then moved on the Draco.

I will never forget how gentle he was that night, for the rest of my life. We had been in the middle of a war, and if nothing else, a war reveals the rough edges in everybody. For him to be so gentle when everything else was so rough, was certainly a nice change, and a change I hoped he would make permanent. He'd even smiled that night, and his eyes shined in a way that I knew nobody would believe was even possible.

If I could go back and change my life, I would've never fallen into Harry arms. I would've waited to know love for it truly was, and know everything that I could be, but if I could only change a single moment, I would've stopped my mind from running that night Draco held me so close beneath the stars, for I had started to cry, knowing that anything that might be between us would never last as long as I wanted it.

I could almost feel Draco hurting when I started to ramble about his father, and about Voldermolt. He'd shut his eyes so tightly and pulled my head to his chest, burying his own face in my hair so deeply that I thought I might've even made him cry. I wish I would've thought about it just for a moment; just long enough to realize that I was telling him that every reason why we couldn't be together was because of him in some way, directly or indirectly. After all, it was only a few weeks after our relationship started to spread that threats from his father had started to pour in. Through the grape vine, Harry and Ron had heard I was next on the list after Harry was killed, and the only reason Ron, and the rest of my family, objected to him so strongly was because of the way he and his father had treated our family for years.

I suppose if Draco could've done it differently, he would have too.

It would be years before anybody accepted him as the man I loved, the man I would've given up anything for, but by then I was too late. One night, in the middle of the night, Draco had waken me and started to put kisses all around my neck and lips, not even caring that Ron was in the same room and watching. I thought he had woken from a dream and missed me, but I felt a single drop of water on my cheek, but it wasn't water. I knew was leaving that instant, but I couldn't do anything because I refused to believe it was true

Ron had eventually left the room and Draco sat with me on the bed for a moment before he pulled away from me, his eyes shut tightly. I reached out to cup his cheek, and brushed that single tear away before he kissed me once more. That had been the only night of my life I had given my body to any man. Draco had given me his heart and I called myself his and no one else's, no matter how far he tried to run.

He claimed it was the best. I didn't believe him then, but it was only three months later that I learned he was right after all. He had been in hiding in muggle London, and his murder had made the front page of every muggle newspaper. Articles claimed it was an impossible murder, and that absolutely no evidence was in existence, but any magical person could've read that paper and known it was a single spell that had stopped his heart. Two simple words to mark one's conscience for life, though I never thought Death Eaters had a conscience at all.

Harry assured me that had Draco stayed, they would've found him anyway, and he would not have been the only one dead. Part of me could never believe that, but was it was so much easier to believe than believing I had not stopped him and he died because of it. Not everything was bad that day, though. I know losing the love of one's life should be a predominately saddened day, but I had received a letter from St. Mugo's that morning.

I turned out that the reason I'd been sick for so long was that I was in fact having a child; Draco Malfoy's child. I'd been pregnant and sobbing over that tombstone when Ron had told me that Draco wasn't as bad of a person as he'd thought. I had no other response but to hit him. I'd been on raging hormones from the pregnancy and every dream I'd ever had of living happily ever after had been crushed in a matter of minutes.

It only took about six more months for the mood to lighten around me. I had a perfect baby girl with a head of Malfoy blonde hair, but I called her a Weasley. I didn't want the Malfoy name to smear her father's memory. I never knew if I forgave Ron for practically driving Draco away, but I don't think I ever had to, because Ron never thought he had any part in that anyway.

Hermione had finally said one thing to me that made all the difference, but I suppose Harry finally defeating Voldermolt might had some impact on everybody's mood as well. She had taken me off the side while my darling Elizabeth ran through the gardens, her braids flying behind her as she chased butterflies, as any normal three year old should. "Don't ever worry, Ginny, because you found the beauty in a time when everything was dark, and you even found a piece of everything you've loved, and you'll have that girl for the rest of your life."


End file.
